


Uncorked

by knowledgekid



Series: Strung Out in Heaven's High [3]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alice is a Bitch, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, F/M, Lots of Sex, Multi, Pining, but there's still a plot, emotion bottles, okay Eliot's still on drugs, queliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 16:39:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17026302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knowledgekid/pseuds/knowledgekid
Summary: Eliot's still having drug problems. And then they try the emotion bottles. You all know what happens next ...





	Uncorked

**Author's Note:**

> There's very graphic sex buried in here if you keep reading, I promise.

Eliot had been okay for a while. He had stopped day-drinking. He went to class. He had, as far as Margo could tell, laid off the coke. She wasn’t thrilled about Mike, but he didn’t seem to be dragging Eliot on any kind of downward trajectory, so when Eliot wanted to stay with him instead of going to Ibiza — well, it felt shitty, but she was more worried about keeping Todd from acting like a twat than leaving Eliot alone. 

She should have been worried about Eliot. 

Because after Eliot had to kill him to save Dean Fogg, the real problems began. 

The dumbasses never sent for her. They never thought to send a message, something like, “Hey, you know your best friend? The one with the latent addiction issues? He had to kill his boyfriend to save the dean, and that’s sort of an issue because he found out he was a magician when he murdered the kid who tormented him.” 

She doesn’t find out until she comes back from Ibiza, tanned evenly top to toe, Todd carrying her bags, hollering for Eliot as soon as she opened the door, only to find the Cottage weirdly empty. There’s no Eliot. No Quentin. No fucking Alice, even. No one knows where’d they’d gone. So she stomps up to her room to take off her makeup, put on a facemask, read, and come up with a really blistering diatribe, because he _knew_ she was coming back from Ibiza that night. 

Quentin, Eliot, and Alice stumble through the portal from their favorite pub in England around three am, disheveled, fighting, looking like they’d been dragged through hell and back. “What the fuck?!” Margo demands. She’s wearing a fluffy white robe, fuzzy pink slippers, a mud mask, and holding Anais Nin’s Diaries. “Where the fuck have you been?” 

“We got the button,” Eliot says. He swigs his flask. The bottomless one. Not a good sign. 

“The button?” she asks cautiously. “ _The_ button?” 

“Yeah, you know, the button that takes you to Fillory and back? The one from the books that the bunnies give to Jane in _The Wandering Dune_ when —” 

“I know which fucking button, and Quentin, you’re being Quentin, so stop it.” She pauses. “Well, where is it?!”

“Penny took it,” Alice says. “He touched it and disappeared.”

“Well isn’t that just fucking convenient,” Margo says. “So we have the button except we don’t have the button and — what did you have to do to get the button, anyway?” 

They exchange looks. 

“I”ll tell you upstairs,” Eliot says. “Right now, Daddy needs to sit down and have a drink.” 

Eliot flops on her bed and tells her the whole story as she washes off the mud mask. Including the part where he called Alice a twat. “Jesus, El,” she says. “No wonder she looked like she wanted to rip your head off and eat it.” 

“Yeah. Well.” He takes another swig. He hasn’t stopped drinking since he’s stretched himself out on her bed. He’s getting mud on her velvet comforter but she decides to just magic it off later. 

“You wanna slow down on that, cowboy?” she asks. 

“Not really. So how was Ibiza?” 

She waves a hand. “Drugs. Fucking. Tanning. More fucking. I think even Todd got laid. How was not-Ibiza?”

“Um, pretty decent. Except I had to kill Mike after he turned out to be possessed by the Beast and tried to kill Henry.”

“WHAT?!” Margo rounds on him. “You had to do _what_?!” 

“All in a day’s work.” He chugs hard at the flask. “Don’t worry. Daddy’s fine.” 

“You didn’t call me? You didn’t send a message? It’s not like you have to find a fucking owl, El!”

He looked at her blankly. 

“Harry Potter joke. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Margo. Really.” 

“But after the Accident —” 

“I’m. Fine.” 

He stands up. “You feel like hitting up the club tonight?” he asks. 

“Eliot, it’s 3 am. I just took off a face mask. I’m wearing my comfy jammies.” 

“I’ll be back then. Don’t wait up, okay?”

“Eliot, why don’t you wait until tomorrow? I’ll go with you tomorrow.” 

“All right, all right, I’ve still got some left. Be right back.” 

He disappears, presumably to his room, and comes back with a small box. He opens it to a reveal a cornucopia of pills, powder, and marijuana. “Jesus, El, what the fuck is this, Fear and Loathing in fucking Brakebills?”

He swallows some pills, cuts out a line of coke on her hand mirror, snorts it, then chases it with more alcohol. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. Now I can deal.”

“You should have called me, El,” she says. 

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he tells her. 

“Bothering is what best friends are for. And we’re best friends, right?” 

“Right,” he says. He squeezes her. “Right.” 

****  
Eventually, after Eliot starts babbling about invisible lizard men, Margo drags him to the infirmary. Lipson says something’s actually wrong with her, not him, which leads them Margo’s creepy ex, who’s keeping a living sex doll of her. Eliot ends up snorting coke with it. 

“I brought you here to support me while I fight with my ex, not do lines with the golem!” Margo fairly shouts at him. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought this was how we support each other.”

 _What, I do lines with you to keep you off the ledge?_ Margo thinks. “Is there something you want to say to me?” 

“No. What is there to say? I like your golem. Life is a unicorn shitting rainbows of candy.” 

It’s the coke kicking in. Asshole. He’s no good for any kind of advanced spellwork when he’s like this, and she knows it. “I’ll um, deal with the Margolem myself. Why don’t you just go home, Eliot.” 

*********

They know they need some serious battle magic to make it in Fillory, or they’re all going to die. Kady’s reluctantly given them the emotion bottles. Alice and Penny decide to try to go without them, but Quentin, Eliot, and Margo can’t manage it. So they use the bottles. Whenever he’s off them, Eliot sucks at his flask like a baby bottle. Margo alternately rages and cries. “What happened to us, El?” she demands through tears. “We used to be best friends!”

He says they still are. He says they’re going to Fillory, and it’s going to fix everything. He promises. 

She wants so desperately to believe him. 

He drinks til he’s in a stupor. Quentin and Margo carry him up to his bed. They’re drunk on emotion magic too, stupid and silly and laughing their asses off. Eliot’s passed out by the time they finally dump him on his comforter. They curl up next to him. The mood suddenly dies, goes from laughter to glum. 

She’d never say it out loud, but she really does like Quentin. 

He is, after all, everything Margo’s never allowed herself to be. Never been allowed to be, if she’s honest, which she usually tries to be, because if you can’t trust yourself not to lie, then how the fuck can you expect to recognize the truth when it slaps you across the face? He never had to hide that he was smart. He’s free, in all his dungeon master glory, to love what he loves as hard as he wants to love it. Her, not so much. 

She put the Fillory books down to survive. He kept them close instead. She would have kept them calling her Fiona forever, would have curled up under the covers with Sir Hotspots and the Cozy Horse, reading by flashlight long into the night. As if someone cared when she went to sleep. 

She was too smart not to have read the statistics: one in eight. Some girls shrank into themselves, to eating disorders and self-harm. Others acted out. She soothed herself, in the rhythms she secretly lifted from Allen Ginsberg, words she chanted in her mind while she fucked boys: _with dreams, with drugs, with endless waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls_. No one but Eliot knows how much Margo loves to read. No one but Eliot knows how much poetry she has stuffed in her head, how it spills out when she’s alone with him and too drunk to care anymore. 

Caring is a luxury one of the very few luxuries Margo Hanson does not allow herself to afford. Except about Eliot. And he’s slipping, slipping, slipping. 

But Quentin — Q is different. Q cares about everything. About the girl he’d pined for and left behind, the hedge bitch in whose eyes Margo had seen herself uncomfortably reflected. Another one in eight: all she could do was throw the book-duplicating box at her and walk out, because what was there to say? Q cares about her. He cares about Alice. Cares about magic. Loves them both in some pure, Galahad-ish way, with an unwavering, clear-eyed certainty in their beauty. No matter how often they fuck up or fall short. God, she wants someone to love her that way. 

And it hurts. Especially with Eliot slipping away, it fucking hurts. 

“There’s a lot more wrong with Eliot than a broken leg,” Margo says out of the blue. Or not. Because she knows that out of everyone in the whole world, only Q will really understand what she means. She knows how he feels about Eliot and right now, she’s too fucked up to ignore it. 

“Yeah, but the spring didn't just fix Rupert's leg. It healed him. All of him,” Quentin says. Margo knows he thinks that if they can just get Eliot to Chatwin’s Torrent, they can fix him. They can fix everything. His faith is so perfect it hurts. 

“There’s this thing about you, Q. You actually believe in magic,” she says, and it’s painful. She remembers when she believed in things that way. 

“So does everyone.” 

“No. We all knows it's real, but you believe in it. And you just love it, pure and simple. You know, I've never loved something like that.” She grits her teeth. She’s trying hard to hold it in, but she can’t. The tears leak out anyway. 

“That’s not true,” Quentin says. He motions at Eliot. 

“Maybe Fillory can fix him,” she says, and now her breath is hitching, “because he’s really not okay, and he just doesn’t care.” 

His arms are around her now. He pulls her close. She can smell him now, the warm scent of tobacco and old books and boy shampoo. “It’s okay,” Quentin says. “We’re gonna do whatever we can. I promise.” Then he’s leaning down, and she’s tilting her head back, and her lips are parting automatically, without thought, because where else could this be going? But he doesn’t kiss her mouth. He kisses the tears off her face. _He kisses the fucking tears off her face._ It almost breaks her, then and there. 

She finds his mouth and crushes her lips against it. Bites his lower lip, rearranges herself so she’s full against him, dress riding up, her thighs pressing against his. She feels rather than hears him gasp. 

She bites his lip again. “I want you,” she says fiercely. “I want you, Quentin Coldwater.” 

And she knows, from the way he held her hips the night Eliot OD’d, from the way she’s caught him watching her ass when she walks out of the room, that he wants her too. 

He stutters something incomprehensible and it’s adorable, really, watching him watch her whiplash from tears into the familiarity of this, of something she knows she can want and give. She bucks against him. He meets her hips, grabs them and holds. 

“Hey,” Eliot slurs suddenly, “There’s no sex in the champagne room. And by the champagne room, I mean, my bed. Unless it’s me. I mean, my sex. In my champagne room. God, I am so drunk. Wait.” He props himself on an elbow. “Bambi, are you seducing Quentin?!” 

“No,” she says. “We are.”

And Quentin’s eyes are widening. He’s turning from her, moving onto his back. Eliot is leaning down from his propped elbow. He strokes Quentin’s cheek. Quentin just stares up at him, disbelieving. Margo stretches herself on his other side, on leg thrown on his, dress still hitched to her upper thighs. One of Quentin’s hands rests there. The other is touching Eliot’s face. 

“Are you going to kiss him, or am I?” Margo asks. “I think you get to go first.” 

“I think I get to go first,” Eliot says. He runs his thumb over Quentin’s lips. “I think I definitely get to go first.” 

Margo nibbles at Quentin’s neck. He tastes like salt, and like something else, something tanged and wild. Magic, she realizes. Because of the emotion bottles, he’s sweating pure magic. She nibbles again, experimentally, then sucks. She parts her legs on him, presses the heat of her against his hip. God, he feels good, and she remembers how good it felt to grind on him that night, when she was on ecstacy, and how it was nothing, nothing compared to this, the feel of him against her and the sharp taste of magic on her tongue. He’s moaning into Eliot’s mouth. She abandons him a moment, kisses Eliot’s neck instead, and tastes the same sharp tang. 

It’s like the perfect drug. 

“You both taste like magic,” she whispers. “Your skin fucking tastes like magic.” 

Eliot is sitting up, pulling his shirt off. Margo takes the chance to kiss Quentin again. They’re lying side by side; he slides his hand up and tangles it in her hair, then pulls, just a bit, and her head’s tilting back farther for him. Eliot’s doing his magic trick where he snaps his fingers and undoes her bra. She pulls it off, and her nipples are hard against Quentin under her thin dress.  
“Wait, how did you —” Quentin starts. 

“Girl trick,” she says. 

“Bambi, that dress needs to go,” Eliot says. Obediently, she sits up and lets him pull it over her head. He leans her back and takes one nipple in his mouth, sucks deeply. The other hand’s kneading her other breast. She hums with contentment and strokes his curls. Eliot loves her tits. She feels Quentin watching, and reaches over and touches him, strokes his stomach where his shirt’s rucked up. Eliot switches breasts and she moans. She’s already getting wet for them. 

“Bambi, you taste so good,” he says. “You taste —” 

“Like magic,” she says. “We taste like magic,” 

Quentin is squirming under her hand. She and Eliot both turn to him. “Poor baby, were we neglecting you?” she asks. She pulls him up and strips his shirt off. His chest is broad, with a hint of hair on the middle. He looks lovely. Sitting, he pulls her close and takes up where Eliot left off, sucking her breasts. He legs are spread in his lap and she squirms, wanting contact. Eliot is standing and taking his pants off. He’s startlingly, suddenly sober-ish, and his boxers are already tented. Quentin’s eyes widen even further when he sees him. 

“You should see if his cock tastes the same as the rest of him,” Margo whispers in his ear. She climbs off his lap, lies on her belly on the bed and props her chin up on her hands to watch. 

Quentin’s tentative. He looks up at Eliot with those big, puppy-dog brown eyes. “I’m so in love with you, El,” he says. “I’m so sorry for everything.” 

“I know, baby,” Eliot tells him. His fingers play in Quentin’s hair. 

“Can I —” 

“Would you?” Eliot asks. 

Quentin’s hand is on her ass, petting the part that her lacey, cheeky underwear doesn’t cover. He sneaks a few looks back at it. Why does she feel like Alice never wore anything like this, especially on a random Tuesday night without sex plans? Eliot stands next to the bed, his cock bobbing near her. Quentin leans in and nuzzles at it through his boxers, and Eliot sucks in a gasp. She sees him lip it, lick it even. But mostly he nuzzles, his whole face buried in Eliot. 

Marog nips his neck. “You’re tormenting him,” she says. She reaches around Quentin’s face and pulls Eliot’s boxers down. “Suck on him,” she breathes into Quentin’s ear. “I want to watch.” 

Quentin tentatively licks the head of Eliot’s cock, concentrating on the sensitive underside. Eliot moans. His hands tangle in Q’s hair. Margo and Q are both on their bellies on the bed, Eliot towering above them. Margo reaches underneath Quentin and finds him hard. She nudges his hips sideways and starts on the buttons of his jeans. “I said suck him,” she says. “Suck on him. He’s waited long enough for this.”

Quentin stops playing around and deep-throats Eliot, takes all of him in. Margo’s impressed at the ease with which he does it; Eliot’s on the large side. “That’s it, baby,” she says. Eliot’s head is thrown back with pleasure. Margo undoes Quentin’s Converse and yanks down his jeans. “Don’t forget his socks,” Eliot manages. “No one should fuck with socks on.” 

“I’m aware of your objection to socks,” Margo says dryly. 

Quentin’s wearing modest boxer briefs. She palms him. He’s hard, and he rubs himself on her hand, looking for friction wherever he can find it. His hand still hasn’t left her ass, and he squeezes it, moans around Eliot. One hand on Quentin, Margo dips the other down to hold Eliot’s balls. They’re shaved, as usual, not that Eliot has, like, any body hair to begin with. She holds, tugs gently, massages. Eliot’s moaning with pleasure. His other hand finds her hair and strokes it. 

“Oh my god, Bambi, Quentin,” he breathes. 

She presses on the thin strip of skin just behind his balls. His moans deepen. 

Quentin lets him go with an audible pop, moves Margo’s hand away, and takes Eliot’s entire sack in his mouth. She manages to maneuver around him enough to lick the underside of his head. Then Q’s licking the base of his shaft. 

“I’m going to come if you keep this up,” Eliot says in a ragged voice. 

“We wouldn’t want that yet,” Quentin says, and draws back. He’s getting harder against her palm, and she realizes he’s uncut. And the front of his underwear is dampening with precum. Oh, this is going to be fun. 

“Quentin Coldwater, are you uncircumcised?” she purrs. 

“Um, yeah,” he says. “Is that —” 

“No, it’s lovely,” she says. “You have to promise to fuck me with it before this is all said and done.” 

“Bambi likes to fuck uncut boys,” Eliot says. “She says it feels better.” 

“Not better. Different. You’re still my favorite lay,” she says to him. She gets up on her knees and kisses him. He can taste himself on her tongue and she knows he loves that. He palms her breasts again. Quentin plasters himself against her from behind, rubs himself against her ass. The feeling of him slipping against her is maddening. His hands join Eliot’s on her breasts, cup and find her nipples and pinch until she can’t tell who is doing what and it’s making her crazy. She can feel her underwear getting wet through. She whimpers, rubs against Eliot. 

“Oh, you’re wet already, Bambi,” he says. He reaches down and touches her and she swears she sees stars. He knows what she likes, thumbs at her clit before sliding a finger just inside her entrance. “You’re soaked, baby. Take those off.” She feels Quentin’s hands pulling her underwear down. 

“Let me,” Quentin says. Gently, he pulls her off Eliot and lays her down on the bed. His mouth covers her, and his fingers find her. She arches up to them. Quentin lays beside and begins slowly, slowly, to explore her folds. He finds her clit and strokes it; he reaches down spreads her wetness all over. She’s whimpering now, grabbing at his long hair. It brushes against her thighs and feels so, so good. 

Her eyes are closed and she doesn’t see what Eliot’s doing until she hears Quentin sigh with pleasure. She looks. Eliot’s licking gently at the head of Quentin’s cock, which is stiff and dark pink with want. He’s also jerking himself off while he does it. She props herself up on the pillows. She loves to watch Eliot. 

Quentin slides a finger into her and she moans deeply. So does he, and she sees Eliot’s taken all of him into his mouth. Q curls his finger forward, crooks it onto her g-spot and she’s arching up to him, bucking her hips and humming with pleasure. She wants him to fuck her with his finger. 

“God, you’re tight,” he says. 

“One of you fuck me,” she begs. 

Eliot stops sucking Quentin for a moment. “Not. Yet,” he says. He gets up, rearranges himself so his head is between her legs and his cock by Quentin’s head. “I think this works better right now,” he says, and gently spreads her open. She gasps. He knows her; they’re old lovers by now. His tongue finds the secret spot just under her hood and licks gently. She tightens up, arches her back into him. 

Quentin gets the hint and starts sucking Eliot. Margo can’t see what’s happening, but by the sound and feel of Eliot’s sighs on her, he’s doing a fantastic job. She knows he stops when Eliot does. She whines. 

“Eliot, fuck me,” Quentin says. 

El looks down at him. “Are you sure?” he asks. “I mean, it’s been —-“ 

“Please,” Quentin begs. 

“Let me fuck him while you do.” Margo smirks. 

“Oh, Bambi, you’re bad,” Eliot says. “Do you think the poor boy can take it?” 

“Please,” Quentin asks again. 

Margo takes his cock in her hand and strokes it gently. “Is that what you want?” she asks. “You want Eliot and I at the same time?” 

“Oh my god, yes,” he says. 

Eliot’s already reaching for the lube. He slicks his fingers and, while Margo gently massages Q’s cock, playing with it, pulling his foreskin over his head and back again, begins rubbing Quentin’s ass. “Is this what you want?” he asks. 

“Please, Eliot,” Quentin begs. 

Eliot rubs gently at Quentin, then slides his finger inside. Quentin gasps and bucks. Eliot rubs, fucks in and out, then adds another finger. “Is that too much?” he asks. 

“No,” Quentin gasps. “No. Please.” 

Gently, so gently, Eliot begins scissoring his fingers. Quentin tenses under him, then relaxes and arches his back again. He reaches down and finds Margo’s entrance, begins making small circles inside her. She moans and thrusts against him. 

Eliot spreads lube over himself while Margo chants a quick contraception spell, a few poppers and and some corrupt Arabic. “You want to go first?” she asks. 

They’ve done this before, know what will work. Eliot positions himself at Quentin’s entrance and slowly, slowly slides inside him. Quentin shivers and moans with it. “Is that okay?” Eliot asks. 

“It feels amazing,” Quentin manages. His breath hitches, and his cock bobs against his belly. Margo takes it in her fist and straddles him. 

“You ready, baby?” she asks. 

Quentin’s able to nod. Eliot stays still inside him as she slowly lowers herself onto him. She crouches low over him, bracing herself on either side of his head. Her tits hang close to his chest. 

She feels Eliot begin to move, because Quentin moves beneath her; he moans and thrusts up into her. Eliot’s hands grasp her hips, guiding her into a rhythm. She leans down and covers Quentin’s mouth with hers. He’s grasping at her breasts and jerking under her. She’s mostly riding the tide of Eliot’s rhythm, in and out, in and out. Quentin can’t take this very long. 

She stops. Sits up. Turns halfway and kisses El. He stops too, and they make Quentin wait while they make out, his hands all over her. He whines and bucks and twists beneath them. They ignore him. 

“I’m sorry, did you want something?” Eliot asks. He thrusts suddenly. Hard. Quentin gasps and rises to meet him, which makes Margo squeal. 

“Please fuck me,” Quentin begs. 

“Should we let him come?” Eliot asks. 

“Probably,” Margo says. She crouches low over Quentin again, whispers in his ear. Her nipples brush his chest. “You want to come, baby?” she asks. 

In reply, he reaches down and puts his thumb on her clit. She sucks in her breath. Eliot’s grabbing her hips again, and they’re fucking Quentin, harder this time, Q working her clit and her sucking in her breath and oh my god, she can’t last much longer with this, with Eliot behind her gasping and Quentin’s hand’s now covering his on her hips, him bucking into her and Eliot —

And she’s coming around Quentin, coming hard, gripping him and crying out and spasming on his cock. That’s all it takes for him; the pressure of her orgasm is enough to send him pistoning deep into her and she can feel the warm rush of come inside her. She’s still gasping, still fluttering on him, when Eliot catches up, thrusts hard, moans deep and collapses onto her back. Quentin’s reaching back, holding his ass as Eliot jerks and thrusts with his own pleasure. 

Then they’re all falling down boneless on each other, still inside one another, hands petting and stroking and still shivering with their own aftershocks. 

“Oh. My. God,” Quentin says. 

“That was fucking amazing,” Eliot says. 

Margo just leans down and lazily kisses Quentin. Then she eases Quentin out of her, rolls over, lazily kisses Eliot, who’s separated from Quentin. “You were both perfect,” she manages. 

“That was phenomenal,” Quentin says. He’s nearly cross-eyed with post-orgasm bliss. 

“We’re good at what we do,” Eliot says, and kisses him. 

“Yes. Yes. You are.” 

“I love you, Eliot,” Quentin says. 

“I love you, Quentin,” Eliot says. 

Then, shockingly, he turns to Margo with his liquid puppy-dog eyes. “I love you, Margo,” he says. 

She’s tongue-tied, agape. 

Eliot kisses her forehead. “Bambi’s not used to declarations of love,” he says. “Give her some time. He holds her. “I love you, Bambi,” he says. 

“I know you do, El,” she murmurs. 

Quentin snorts with laughter. 

“What?!” 

“Nothing, Han.” 

“Oh, shutthefuckup,” she says, and cuffs him on the shoulder. It’s something she’d normally only do to Eliot. 

They stretch out together on the bed, one on each side of Q. Eliot spoons Quentin. Margo lets Quentin spoon her. He buries his face in the back of her neck, and she moves her hair out of the way for him. They fall asleep like that, in a sticky heap. 

They don’t wake until morning. Margo’s precognition screams that someone’s watching her. She cracks her eyelids. She’s curled into Q, drooling slightly onto his shoulder, one leg and one arm thrown over him. Her head is pounding like a migraine and her mouth tastes like a cocaine hangover. Alice is staring at them. 

_Oh, fuck._

A beat later, Q wakes up and sees her. 

_Double fuck._

He’s up and shoving his clothes on and after her. Eliot wakes up dazed. “Oh fuck,” he says. 

“Fuck,” Margo agrees. 

They manage to get dressed and downstairs about an hour later. Penny, Alice, and Quentin are waiting for them. No one is looking at them. 

“Y’all look like you did a crime last night,” Penny says. 

No one replies. He launches into a speech about how they have to go to Fillory now, before the Beast kills them all. Margo keeps sneaking looks at Q. He is resolutely not meeting her eyes. Or Eliot’s. Or Alice’s. 

The tension is unbearable. FInally Alice storms out. “I need some air,” she snaps. 

“Alice is a little sensitive right now,” Margo explains to Penny. 

“Would you shut the fuck up, Margo?” Quentin snaps. 

She’s agape but doesn’t show it. Fuck him. “Are you seriously mad at me right now?” she snaps right back. Because no one gets to be mad at her for fucking them. No one. Especially after they said the shit that Q did last night. 

“It’s not funny and it’s not a joke!” Quentin says to Penny. 

Eliot’s high school theater is paying off. “Oh, but it truly is, Quentin,” he says smoothly. Margo knows he must be dying inside. Because that little bastard, after last night, is still picking Alice. Still. After everything. 

****

Later, Eliot tries to act the reasonable one. Even if, as Margo can tell, he’s freaking out. But the drugs are kicking in and he’s mellowed, mellowed, mellowed. “Now, now, Bambi, he’s got a right to be mad,” he says. 

“No one gets to be mad because I had sex with them!” she snaps. “You’re welcome, both of you!”

“We were all messed up on emotion magic,” Eliot says. “We deserve a pass.” 

“I don’t need a pass!” she flares. 

“You two have ruined my life,” Quentin finally says. 

Margo stops herself from slapping him. “No offense, Quentin,” she says instead, “but you did that all by yourself.” 

*****

Alice fucks Penny. That little bitch fucks Penny, of all people. Q still trails after her like a kicked puppy. Just before they’re all set to down the emotion bottles, to really, really go to Fillory, Margo’s standing next to Alice. They’re supposed to hold hands. 

“I’m not touching that bitch,” she says. 

All hell breaks loose. 

Alice wants to kill Quentin for sleeping with Margo and Eliot. Quentin wants to kill Alice for sleeping with Penny. Eliot, drugged up and at the end of his mental energy, drops to the couch and starts to cry. Margo rounds on Quentin. 

“How could you? How fucking could you do this to him? How could you do this to us?” she screams at him over and over. 

“You ruined my fucking life!” he shouts at her. “Even if I do feel the way I do!”

“And how’s that, Quentin?” snarks Alice. 

“I’m in love with Eliot!” he yells in her face. “And I didn’t fuck Eliot and Margo last night. I made love to both of them! And neither of them fucking faked it!”

She slaps him. 

“You know Joe gave me a potion to slip into your drink so we’d come at the same time?” he says at her. “So you were actually capable of having an actual orgasm with me without fucking pretending? At least those two never lie to me! Did you fake it for Penny, too?” 

“You fucking drugged me?! That’s like two steps shy of date rape!” 

“I told you she was faking it,” Margo says. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Alice tells her. 

“You’re just mad I stole your boyfriend, Miss Tits,” Margo tells her. 

“I didn’t hear him you included in his proclamations of undying love,” Alice snaps. 

“Yeah, well, then you weren’t fucking listening,” Quentin yells. 

“Oh my God, will you people STOW YOUR SHIT!” Penny shouts. 

“Fuck you,” Eliot says, looking up from floor. He slurs slightly. “You’re the one who decided to get vindictively involved for some easy pussy.” 

“You fucking made Eliot cry, Quentin! How does that fucking feel?!” Margo demands. 

“It feels like shit!” he roars back at her. 

“Make a choice, Quentin,” Margo says through clenched teeth. “Make it. Make it now. Either pick the man who never lied to you, who’s always loved you, or pick the bitch who faked her way through all your sexual encounters, who treats you like shit, and who fucked Penny to get back at you. Your fucking choice. But fucking pick one.” 

Quentin’s trapped. His head swivels from Alice to Eliot to Margo. Alice looks like she’s about to unleash the Rhinemann Ultra on him. Eliot’s looking up, his face tear-streaked. Margo stands with her hands on her hips, feet firmly planted, ready to slap him silly. 

“Eliot,” he whispers. “Eliot.” 

Alice gives a hissy shriek and stomps off. Penny goes after her. 

Margo slaps him anyway. “That was for the way you treated us this morning, you bastard,” she says. “That was the shittest morning after in the history of morning afters.” 

“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he whispers. His eyes are puppy-dog sad again. “I’m so sorry, Margo. I meant everything I said last night. Everything. But that was the hardest fucking thing.” 

“Then nut up, bitch,” she says. “Because we’ve got a fucking Beast to kill.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this changes things, now doesn't it? We're firmly in AU territory now, though there's nothing to say that Q doesn't still love Alice, he just picked Eliot. I don't think that makes her death any easier on him. In fact, it may make it worse. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are love! Tell me what you think and where we should go from here.


End file.
